“But how did I get here?” you ask. “What is this place? And what have you done with my legs?”
We’re two friends who love videogames, and who love talking about videogames! With each other. In case that wasn’t clear.
So we started twenty dollar gaming, the podcast where we spend $20 on games each month and then mix up a lovely little podcast just for you. Yes, you. Specifically. No, we’re not watching you. You can’t prove anything.
We’ll also let you know which games we’ll be playing ahead of time. So you, like us, can grab the games at the start of the month, play through them, and then listen at the end. Feel free to tell us what you thought in the comments! Loudly declaim that we completely missed the point! It’ll be fun – for you. We’ll just sit quietly in the corner, weeping.
Mostly we’ll cover indie games, and they will (we hope) be universally interesting. Maybe not polished, maybe not masterpieces, and maybe not fun. But we aim to have something to chew over at the end of the month: perhaps an intriguing mechanic, or an unusual structure, or even just an unexpected tone. We don’t want to like these games: we want them to be interesting. The two aren’t mutually exclusive, but still.
We think games are art, and that doesn’t mean you have to be wishy-washy about them: if anything, that means we have to be more rigorous, more critical and more thoughtful than ever.
You can find more on our philosophy at the about page, but I’ll answer the big question: why twenty dollars? Why that fixed amount?
We love how many free games there are on the internet. We’ve also benefited from sales and bundles. But we also know it’s hard to make a living as a developer, especially when you’re indie and you feel pressured to set your prices low. By setting our sights at $20 a month, we’re saying: “Yes, you can charge that much for a game!” After all, these people worked damn hard on these projects. It’s only fair they charge for admission.
“What if I can’t afford twenty dollars a month?” you ask. Well, first of all, we’re both truly sorry that you’re in such a bad financial situation. It’s not fun living on minimum wage or benefits, and we certainly don’t expect you to fork out that cash. But we hope that, by encouraging people to spend, creatively and compassionately, within the indie scene, that a developer somewhere won’t end up in that same financial position. Plus, at least we’re working for free and producing this podcast, which you can listen to completely for free and which we hope you find fun. So hopefully everyone wins? Just a little bit?